Disappointing Supposed Classic of the Week: 'Lady Snowblood' (1973)

Random fact of the day: Lady Snowblood's mother wasn't really called Doris. It's just funnier this way.

With a title like Lady Snowblood you’d figure you’re definitely onto a cult classic. I’d heard that it heavily influenced Tarantino’s Kill Bill, but made little note of it at the time beyond registering that it had a fantastically pulp-y title. So when American author Michael Chabon mentioned it over and over in his most recent novel I took it as a second vote of confidence and promptly hunted it down.

Its structure is the twin of Kill Bill’s (what with Tarantino stealing it wholesale): it’s a revenge tale following a striking young woman (Meiko Kaji) who’s after the four people that killed her father and brother, and raped her mother. During her journey she keeps her sword ever at hand, promising bloodletting.

It’s an often beautiful film, but rarely an engaging one. If only Toshiya Fujita (he that directed it) had invested some money in the fight choreography rather then investing it all in the set design. A man runs at Kaji’s Lady Snowblood! She turns! SWISH! Bit of blood. Then death. A man runs at Kaji! SWISH! Bit of blood, etc, etc, repeat ad nauseum. If the story had some nuance, if the dialogue wasn’t just 97-minutes of exposition, if it had one decent fight sequence, then I could understand its cult classic status. Instead it has immaculately designed sets.

As for the lead, Meiko Kaji, she’s certainly striking, but she conveys nothing. She’s supposed to play like a female version of the Man with No Name-type seen in practically every Clint Eastwood western (most notably in the Dollars Trilogy). But the reason he works so well is because we know nothing of his past and where he comes from, making him rather more enigmatic than Kaji; plus: Eastwood had charisma to burn. Kaji is neither enigmatic nor charismatic.

Despite having a plot that’s simplicity itself, Fujita still manages to overcomplicate things, jumping backwards and forwards in time for no reason, and adding little details here and there, convincing you that they’ll pay off down the line; making you believe there’s a masterplan we’re not picking up on. But no. There isn’t. Instead what we get is: SWISH! Instant death. SWISH! More death. 

Overall: 2/10 

Overlooked Gem of the Week: 'Unbreakable' (2000)

'FROM THE MIND OF M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN'. When that flashed up on the screen during the trailer for Devil, the entire cinema I was in burst out laughing. That was three years ago, and things haven't changed much. At the time Devil was released Shyamalan had just taken a critical kicking for the one-two of The Lady in the Water and The Happening. Since then we've had The Last Airbender (6% on Rotten Tomatoes) and, as of last week, After Earth (11% on RT). So now seems as good a time as any to light a candle for the writer-director that once was. He really did used to know what he was doing.

After The Sixth Sense everyone went into Unbreakable prepared for a twist. It was expected, and no one wanted to be caught out. That's not the way to watch a film. Or, rather, its not the way to appreciate a film. It didn't help that it was marketed as a psychological thriller, when its actually a superhero flick; albeit one in disguise.

The opening ten-minutes are immaculately written and staged. Everything we need to know about Bruce Willis's forlorn security guard is woven in subtly as he tries to chat-up a young woman on the train. Nothing is obviously wrong during this scene, but there's a tension to it all. Something's going to happen. Something bad.

One of the best scenes in the film, and the best I saw that year, saw Samuel L. Jackson's character Mr. Glass in a foot chase in which he was moving at the rather stately pace of three miles an hour, having to hobble along with his glass cane. That Shyamalan could make that scene edge of your seat stuff really is impressive.

If you haven't seen it: its a better film that you've heard it is. If you have seen it: its a better film than you thought it was. Give it another look.

Overall: 8/10

New Release Review: 'Behind the Candelabra'

If this is Steven Soderbergh's last film, as he claims, but most disbelieve, then it's not a bad one for him to go out on. Having directed just about every type of film under the sun, he now genre hops into romantic-drama-biopic. Behind the Candelabra (which is based on the book of the same name) follows a babe in the woods, Scott Thorson (writer of said book, and played by Matt Damon), as he gets caught up in the bright bright world of piano virtuoso Liberace (played by a never better Michael Douglas).

It's a little predictable in the early going: Scott catches Liberace's eye, is slowly seduced, and is then smothered with fine things to keep him from thinking of going elsewhere. It's a twist of sorts, since it'd usually be an innocent young femme being seduced; but the story beats are still too familiar. It's only when the couple settle into routine as they grow content (and plump) that the film connects. Maybe because, for the briefest of moments, the two were relatable in their rotund happiness. This contentment doesn't last long though.

Ultimately, even with some of the fascinatingly strange turns the film takes - particularly with the extreme plastic surgery subplot, where Scott's identity is practically erased - neither character is interesting enough to warrant two hours of screen time. The defining characteristics of the two are: Liberace is utterly self-involved, and Scott is quite handsome. Which is fine, but it hardly makes them worth investing in.

Despite that, I was entertained. The cameos from Dan Aykroyd and Rob Lowe are fantastic, and Michael Douglas would easily have been an Oscar contender if the film had been release in theatres in the US (it was broadcast on HBO - who were the only ones willing to produce it). It's not an easy part, playing someone who was so staggeringly flamboyant, yet was never (or rarely) suspected of being gay. It's a performance that could easily turn into a caricature, but somehow he stays just on the right side of that line.

Overall: 6.5/10

New Release Review: 'Byzantium'

Byzantium follows Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan's two-hundred-year-old *kind-of-vampires (*they have no fangs and instead use odd extendable talons; they're fine in daylight; and they have reflections) as they take shelter in a decrepit hotel after almost being caught by a mysterious man, who Arterton leaves burnt and dismembered.

There's an interesting film somewhere under the heavily overcast, annoyingly self-involved, and highly contradictory, script. Arterton and Ronan, as mother and child, kill a plentiful amount of people during the film, but never dispose of a body (bar one); and yet the big issue for Arterton's vampire (or 'succruent', as they're referred to here), the code that she and Ronan must live by, is that they must never tell anyone their true story. If a person finds out, they have to die. Now that's all well and good, but if you're already exsanguinating most everyone that you come across, you'll probably be found pretty sharp-ish. Sam Riley, the next mysterious man tasked with hunting down the pair, has absolutely no trouble following the trail of bodies, which are better and more frequently set down than breadcrumbs. Realistically he should have found Arterton and Ronan some time around the twenty-minute mark.

Then there's Ronan's whole dalliance with college. They're on the run but somehow Ronan inrolls and attends classes, UNDER HER OWN NAME. She also kindly provides an address. This wouldn't usually bother me, but every other sentence Arterton utters is about them staying out of the public eye, and keeping to the code: "Gotta keep to the code. Can't break the code. What do you think I'm going to say next? A good guess would be something code-based." I'm paraphrasing a tad, but that's the the gist.

The one thing in Byzantium's favour (besides the ever-awesome Saoirse Ronan) are the regular flashbacks in which Neil Jordan (the director) goes all out: lurching the film from mopey melodrama to bloody operatic bombast - or something close to it. His tweaking of the vampire mythology: having a vampire create itself, makes for a strong image (although it's problematic in a 'How-does-Back-To-The-Future-make-any-sense' sort of way, but it's not a big sticking point); the rivers of blood that then run, as a consequence of being 'turned', is almost as striking. But strong imagery does not a good film make.

The only stand out sequence of the film has Ronan starkly explaining just what it would take for a person to believe she's the vampire she claims to be. Its a strong scene, touching upon ageing and deathlessness in a way that the rest of the film clearly wants to, but constantly falls short. Its a scene that indicates that there was a good idea in there at one point, but it got lost in a stuttering grating romance, that's only believable for ten-second stretches.

Overall: 4/10

Overlooked Gem of the Week: 'Dredd' (2012)

The first Judge Dredd film came out in 1995. Rob Schneider was cast as the comic relief. An idea only fractionally worse than casting Stallone as Dredd. The film was so bad that almost 20 years later audiences instinctively steered clear of director Pete Travis's new take on the character.

If you grew up reading the original strip in 2000AD, you'll like the movie. If you like lean pacy action thrillers, you'll like the movie. If you enjoyed the strangely artful bloodletting in Takeshi Kitano's Zatoichi: You'll. Like. The. Movie. It's as bloody as you'd imagine; smarter than you'd expect; and, every so often, just when the violence edges towards a tad too much, its undercut with some very dark humour.

Besides the above, the reason Travis nails the film is because he gets the details right: Cape Town is a surprisingly good stand in for Megacity 1, Karl Urban as Dredd is note perfect (he growls his lines, always deadpan, as Clint Eastwood circa. 1985 - which is just as it should be), and Lena Headey as Ma-Ma plays like an unhinged Cersei Lannister. Which is fun. And that's the best way to describe the film as a whole: fun. It was never going to sweep the awards ceremonies, but it should have had more of an impact than just being a blip on the radar. 

Go enjoy the bloodletting.

Overall: 7/10

Disappointing Would-be Pulp Classic of the Week: 'I Saw The Devil' (2010)

The setup for I Saw The Devil couldn't be more pulpy, or more promising. A secret agent takes slow bloody revenge on a serial killer after his fiancee becomes the latest victim of the madman; as he exacts his revenge he finds himself becoming ever more like his prey.

The problem is that the film doesn't really want to explore what this would really do to Byung-hun Lee's secret agent. It's not like Kim Jee-Woon, the director (best known for the chilling K-horror A Tale of Two Sisters), doesn't have time to delve into it. At 2 hours and 21 minutes it's almost a good hour longer than its Roger Corman-esque premise needs, but it only alludes to Lee's journey to the dark side when it suits it. 

Instead the film plays out as a series of contrivances (one example (and there are many) is in the sketch above) strung together by fairly regular over-the-top moments of bloody mayhem. These sequences are fun enough, but you won't care whether anyone comes out of them alive. 

The sole redeeming factor is Min-sik Choi's serial killer. (Why is he a serial killer? It's best not to start asking questions; you'll just get annoyed.) Choi seems to be tapping into his inner Lecter, which, in a film this problematic, is a blessed distraction. It's that, or fall asleep.

Overall: 3/10

New Posts

I'll be posting reviews (+ doodles!) on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. More often than not it'll just be one a day - lest I find myself suffering from doodle fatigue - but on occasion I might put together two or three.

The results of doodle fatigue